


To Every Heart A Haven

by clutzycricket



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, DCU (Comics), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dementors, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:52:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5030863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius Black had a collection of bad habits.  Running to Rhaenys for help seemed the thing to do, when he had the Wizarding World calling for his soul, a filthy set of robes to his name, and a set of memories more like half-completed ink sketches.</p><p>As always, she's there with a ready ear and a place to sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Every Heart A Haven

Sirius’ memories from Before were there, in a distant manner. A corner of his mind were bringing up the idea of pen and ink sketches, black and white with varying amounts of depth, though there was something about that image that bothered him.

But he remembered the tangle of facts-slowly returning emotions-memories that is Cheshire, a steady flame and mobile mouth and stating that she was going to be a professor of history at Oxford with all the certainty of a prophetess.

Things were a bit better the closer he got to Oxford- which was on the way to Lily’s sister, and Rhaenys would help him, she’d listen with those clever eyes half closed and hands steepled.

(He’d never been much for entanglements, he remembered distantly, the words broken, flawed, unlovable in his mind from the time his friends started noticing girls that way. James had teased him for not noticing that girls had thrown themselves at him, and the odd boy, but he hadn’t. He’d been baffled when his odd muggle friend, a girl who he’d met while running away from home and only Lily and James had known about, had started sparking odd thoughts. Even then, it had been mostly just enjoying each other’s company, curled up and teasing…)

This was a fool’s hope, but he had found a muggle phone book, and he could dredge up enough memories to look up Rhaenys’ address.

It was along an old city street, with ivy and holly growing along the walls in a way that made the human part of his mind hum with contentment. There was stained glass in the windows, and a colorless bicycle that must be red.

He scratched at the door, wondering what she would do.

Twelve years without a note, and whatever whispered promises you made, only the dead knew what she was to you, she didn’t even think you a traitor until she saw the news that you killed twelve people-

Shut up shut up shut up, Sirius thought, shaking out his head. She had friends who knew about us.

The woman at the doorway was unmistakably Rhaenys, the same long tumble of dark hair and shield-like face staring at him as if she’d seen a ghost.

She closed her eyes in a familiar gesture, and Sirius gave a doggy grin at the piano-playing movement she did with her fingers against the doorway, knowing she’d do it before her eyes had focused fully on his face.

“Come in, then,” she said, walking in, a faint, troubled look upstairs. “You owe me a story.”

He was human as soon as the doors opened. It was Rhaenys, and he trusted her.

She was in her usual face, with her sharp brown eyes and slightly wavy hair and the stubbornly olive skin that never changed, coming up to his collar and delicate seeming if you ignored the sharpness to the slightly long nose and the stubborn set of her jaw. She had the faintest of lines about her eyes, now, and circles under them- not that he was in a position to talk, given how Azkaban had left him.

He checked her nails, just in case. Short and round and not likely to claw him at the moment.

“You look like a walking corpse,” she said, eyes widening. Literally- empathic metamorph, Elia had called it, shapeshifting like a metamorphagus only leaning on some sort of energy field that wasn’t quite magic. She had better control of it now, he thought- when they were twenty-two her hair would have been a silver thicket and her eyes violet saucers.  “What did they do to you?”

She reached out a hand, and Sirius drew back, remembering the one and only time Lily had asked Rhaenys to help them with an Order matter that brushed up with Dementors. Dementors and empaths didn’t mix. The bruises that had run over her skin for two days had proven that, memories painfully clear in his head.

“Twelve years of bad food and reliving my worst memories and perpetual guilt trips in a godforsaken island in the North Sea,” he said lightly. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Well,” she said, taking a shaky breath. “I can fix the food part, at least. But you still owe me a story.”

He followed her dutifully, explaining about the Charm and the switching of Secret Keepers, and Lily and James’ death. How he had tracked down Peter, terrified of what he could still know and filled with blinding rage that had clouded his better judgement.

That rage had been an echo, true, but it had been a sword in Azkaban, with his innocence as a shit shield.

Rhaenys, who was watching him as she pulled out a frozen soup and made him some toast, looked up at that, head tilted. “You know, I still wonder…” She shook her head. “Academic question, for right now.”

“You were always good at them,” Sirius said, testing the memories. She grinned.

“Still am, actually. I’m a lowly researcher, but between the family and my teaching I get by,” she laughed, easing the points of her ears. “I’m writing a book, actually.”

“Clever lady,” he said, looking around the kitchen curiously. It was bright and chipper- there was a coffee mug in the dryer and two bowls in the sink. His heart sank a bit at that.

“Dr. Rhaenys Targaryen, lady academic,” she sighed. “But what happened when you found Peter? And why, in God’s name, didn’t you tell me about any of this?”

“Peter shouted I was the traitor, blew up the street, cut off his finger, and turned into a rat,” Sirius said dully, trying not to stare at the sink. “And I didn’t want to… your mum was ill, and there was that other stuff, and pushing more onto you didn’t seem right just then. I was going to ask if you could get them out of the country somehow.”

“Possibly,” she frowned. “I could have asked one or two people, but James would have essentially needed an identity out of whole cloth, and Lily’s patched up. You know it would have ended badly if they were thought to have the gene, especially with Harry. Who is currently…”

“With his aunt and uncle, from what I can guess,” Sirius sighed. “I suppose I can’t go near him unless we get Peter? And… I didn’t want Bellatrix targeting you- trust me, she would have made it her life’s work to kill you, and in Azkaban she made it clear what she did to two trained Aurors.” He looked at her guiltily as she took the soup off the pot, pouring him a bowl.

“I understand,” she said, not quite touching his face. “I know you Sirius. You don’t put people in glass cases, and if you did it, you did it because you had a real worry.” Her bitter grin was there. “Benefits of my powers- I can see people very clearly, remember?”

“Also an ingrained fear of my cousin,” Sirius quipped without thinking. He blinked.

Her hair was a bit curlier than normal, and something was subtly sharper about her face, a sure sign of power-using, and he was willing to bet she was draining off the lingering effects of the dementors.

“Marry me?” he asked, hoping…

“Maybe next time,” she said, the old refrain. “I will have to call in someone, though. You need someone who can heal physical wounds, too.” She bit her lip. “Also…”

Her eyes were a bright lilac as the door swung wide open.

“MUM! MUM! I need you, Auntie Ari wants to take me to Paris next week, she says I only turn eleven once, do say yes, please, I’ll simply die if you don’t,” said a high-voiced whirlwind, coming to an inelegant stop at the edge of the door.

She was coltish and had black hair pulled back in a tail, wide brown eyes staring at Sirius as if he was a puzzle. Her jeans had a dirt and grass smear down half of one leg, and her t-shirt was two sizes two big at least.

“Are you doing your other job? Is Miss Prince coming?” she asked, biting her lip. There was something terribly familiar about her, but Sirius couldn’t place it. It must be the resemblance to what he thought of as Rhaenys’ usual face.

“Not at the moment, actually, though he knows about it,” Rhaenys said, hair going silver all at once the way it had when her skinchanging brother had been stabbed. “I… well… Shazi, sweetling…”

“Who died?” the girl asked, tucking in her elbows as she jammed her hands into her pockets. “Aunt Nym?”

“No one, but I wanted to do this in a slightly more tactful manner,” Rhaenys said. “Of course, I’ve never been allowed much of a say in your life, have I?” There was a story there, Sirius knew.

“Granddad named me, you don’t talk about Dad in the same way you don’t talk about Uncle Viserys, and the Uncles and the Aunties steal me away all the time,” the girl recited. “Also, you’re a superhero.”

“I’m not a superhero,” Rhaenys grumbled. “And I hate your granddad’s taste in names.”

“Nice to see some things haven’t changed, Chesh,” Sirius said. She gave him a long-suffering look.

“Sirius, meet your daughter. My father took it upon himself to steal the birth certificate and name her Shahrazad, because he thought it… I don’t even know. Seers. The family calls her Shazi, because we call me Cheshire thanks to certain people exposing Blue to it,” and here she looked at him, “and Aegon Blue after the hair incident, so when she called herself that as a toddler, it stuck.”

“I nickname people,” Sirius said, which was possibly not the most profound first thing to say to his daughter.

“Shazi, this is your father. He was basically held captive for twelve years, which makes me rather angry, and I need to make a few phone calls.” Rhaenys gave them a vague smile.

“That’s her murder smile,” Shazi said, grinning. “She got it from Grandmere. Do you have powers?”

“I’m a wizard,” Sirius said, before realizing a few very important facts, possibly because Rhaenys wasn’t there to act as a buffer anymore. “Shit.”

“Wizards- like Mr. Blood?” she looked curious. Sirius could recall neutral memories of a man with a sharp wit and a streak of white through his bloodred hair.

“No,” he said. “We use wands, though some of the bigger, older things do borrow from those rituals.” He wondered how much Rhaenys would have told her. “You probably are a witch, actually. When’s your birthday?”

“Three days from now,” she said, before heading to the muggle icebox and getting some food. “You’re lucky Grandmere is ill, because we’d be in Cornwall otherwise. And why wouldn’t Mum tell me this?”

“Your mother only knew bits and pieces about the wizarding world, and a lot of it wasn’t good. She was probably hoping to keep you safe. We’ll see about it soon, then,” he said, a prickle of worry trickling down his neck. “You should get a letter, or maybe a visit from the Assistant Headmistress. It’ll ask if you want to go up to Hogwarts to learn magic.”

“What’s it like, this place?” she looked in the direction her mother went.

“It’s grand, really,” he said. “Far up in Scotland, so it’s freezing in winter, but there are warming charms and fires and you can charm the house elves into helping you.” He tried to pull up the memories, but they were too dim. “We pulled some amazing pranks, snuck around, learned things that weren’t on the approved list.”

Shazi looked at him, dark eyes assessing. For all her energy, she was slightly terrifying still, he decided. “I don’t know if I’d like that. I’m all Mom’s got, really. I mean,” here she stumbled, “technically the Aunties and Uncles, but they all have, well, stuff, and they think her a bit dull or daft or whatever, and I think they are silly, and I suppose her other friends, but it’s mostly me and mum every day and if I’m gone…”

Sirius frowned, and wanted to reassure her, but, well, Rhaenys had been fairly open with him about the hell controlling her powers had been, and he had no right to comfort this stranger, did he?

“I’d like to see if she’ll give me another try,” he said. “Of course, this is if we can pull off a miracle.”

“Mum can,” she said, nodding. “And just so you know, I know Batman. So you can’t leave us again. Not unless we boot you out.”

He didn’t snicker.

~

Sirius had been hidden very thoroughly indeed, Rhaenys had cackled to herself, pulling her slightly frizzy, silvering hair into a loose knot. Her skirt was two inches shorter against her leg than it had been when she put it on, and her nails kept growing. She willed herself still, wondering if she should just give in and go to the piano until the time of Professor McGonagall’s appointment.

No one thinks I might be busy, she thought wryly. Of course, her book is actually going fairly well- the benefits of being a diplomat’s daughter is a talent for languages, not to mention a shameless habit of using those connections to get at archives.

Shazi was trying to build a card castle out of a tarot deck her grandfather had given her, and Rhaenys sighed and sat at the piano. If she does not, she knew, she will be fighting her emotions until she is safely at the Watchtower.

She chose Ravel, because Gaspard de la nuit suits her, with its hidden difficulties and the waterfalls and intricacies of the Ondine piece. Shazi put away the deck and curled on the couch, looking so very much like Sirius had when she played- lost entirely in the music, as if nothing could touch either of them.

Every day of raising her was cutting out her heart in a thousand small ways and healing it over, and now she was being asked to give her changeling child away.

Minerva McGonagall was a sensible, sarcastic woman whose emotions don’t push heavily against Rhaenys, and who the woman suspected she might like under other circumstances. When asked if Shazi ever did anything unusual, she manages not to say anything too worrying.

Unusual for the daughter of a woman who studied under a demonologist? A woman who could take the forces of nature and use their strength as her own? Shazi was quite plain, in comparison, some would say. That didn’t take into consideration her stubborn will, her quick wits and ability to pull together a puzzle, how much she threw herself into something, all or nothing.

Her daughter was far from plain, but there was no way to explain it to someone without the words.

“I thought she might be metahuman,” Rhaenys said mildly, to see the reaction.

“I’ve gotten that reaction more and more the past few years,” the professor said, curious. “I’m not quite certain how that works, though.”

“I can send Shazi with a book or two,” she said, because Rhaenys knew a lost cause when she heard one. She, Shazi, and Sirius had spent most of the last few days working out the pros and cons, after all.

“That would be wonderful,” the woman said with a thin smile that had sincerity behind it, looking around. “I have so little information in the wizarding world on the subject.”

There is no trace of Sirius, Rhaenys reminded herself as they showed their guest out. The thought hurt more than it should have.

Shazi tugged at a tiny lock of silver hair underneath, by her neck.

“Meh,” Rhaenys said, looking at her daughter. “Time for tea, and hopefully Diana and Jason will have helped himself enough that we’ll be alright.”

While Shazi packed her bags- ‘Wing was there, and he promised to help her with her gymnastics, apparently- Rhaenys played the third and last movement of the Ravel piece, losing herself in the ordered chaos and technical precision hiding behind a mask.

After, she told herself, she could keep being Dr. Targaryen, keep being one person, steady and constant and strong. Music had been the way she kept herself sane when her powers started spiralling out of control and she started literally losing herself in bits and pieces to those around her, uncertain where their versions of her ended and her real self began.

Dad, for all of his many fuck-ups, had been the one to find Jason Blood, to beg him to help his strange and talented daughter. And Jason had figured out how to keep her stable, and control her powers.

Then, of course, there was Sirius. Love was giving bits of yourself away, she’d heard, so she’d always shied away from the idea. The Lyanna Fiasco had made it easier. But Sirius had worn his heart on his sleeve, and the pressures of changing and shifting into something she wasn’t… she hadn’t felt that in the same mad, casual, dismissive rush that she got from near everyone else.

So she had a friend, a secret, just for her, the first she’d had since she was a child.

And then… well, she’d had more than a friend. And he’d vanished without a trace, and the world had seemed terribly bleaker without his madcap presence.

She’d kept on track, burying herself in her work in a way that made her family worry a bit, until Shazi, and oh, her little girl. It had been impossible to harden her heart again with Shazi there.

So she played the quiet scandal, with her brothers and, oddly, Obara, as gleeful babysitters. And then, of course, Jason had been keeping an eye on her, and asked her to consult with the capes and cowls brigade, and it wasn’t the same vibrancy and intensity, but she wasn’t a starry eyed girl who dreamed of true love rescuing her from a curse anymore. She liked Diana’s warmth and wisdom, Superman’s occasional dry comment, Bats and his moments of sneaky, stubborn kindnesses. J’onn and the feeling of just quiet companionship. Working with Raven to help a younger empath with problems different from hers, the Robins and just laughing, getting out and reminding herself she was more than dust, ink, and the mother of a whirlwind.

Shazi must have lingered back, because she was sitting crosslegged on the floor, her Hogwarts letter poking out.

She raised an eyebrow.

“I have questions,” her daughter said, bouncing up. “Tons of questions.”

“I’m still amazed they allow you up,” Rhaenys said. It had been, she understood, the fault of her babysitter while Rhaenys was “consulting”, needing to put her somewhere safe. And so it had apparently seemed like a good idea at the time.

“I can behave,” was Shazi’s sulky comment.

Sirius was looking a bit bewildered, with Nightwing and a cheerful-seeming Superman talking to him. Shazi let out a gleeful cry at seeing one of her favorite people besides her Auntie Arianne and Uncle Jon and launched herself at them.

“B wants a word,” Nightwing said, and Rhaenys tilted her head. “And Doc Stark is here.”

“Found him,” she said lightly, walking over. Her sandals were left at the door- she didn’t need them, really, ever since she was six and Dad agreed the Hobbit was a good book choice, and bare skin always made the magic-meta mix of her powers easier to work.

Bats had a slight air of exasperated fondness, rage, and protectiveness that was both separate and somehow connected, and was entirely him. She could probably identify him out of the cowl on that alone, and he probably knew it, but he knew the elfin, silver-and-midnight woman and her normal face, so they had a lightly worn truce that was strengthened by bonding over the absurdities of their children.

“There wasn’t a trial,” Batman said, and the simmering rage was closest to the surface. She gave him a look.

“No, there wasn’t. And Sirius can list off quite a few very, very good reasons to want him out of the way, if not dead in a way that people wouldn’t dare question,” Rhaenys said, sitting across from him. There was the faintest pattern of scales under her fingers. “I meant to ask Jason or someone to run tests- I want to see if Sirius is a meta.”

She wondered if the mask was as expressive as she thought it was, or if it was her powers shading in his face. “Any reason why?”

“A few quiet things,” Rhaenys shrugged. “If it’s there, his magic might have… subsumed it, but every so often something he or Lily did made James frown, and if he is, it would be important to know for Shazi’s sake.” She grinned. “Shazi is stealing your son, by the way.”

His mouth twitched. “I thought it was the other way around.”

Lantern tripped behind her at the joke, and she raised an eyebrow.

“Besides,” she frowned. “He was always able to ground me when my powers were flaring up, just by contact. Which is, well, the opposite of how it works. And when you add how he stayed sane in Azkaban… I doubt he’s the only innocent person ever sent there.”

“That’s still in debate,” Clark said, because some lovely self-preserving part of her brain disliked connecting rage and Superman. “But Diana agrees with the facts of his story, and I think you might have a point. Though it means we have to wonder how Peter Pettigrew fooled him.”

“Empathy and telepathy are not the same,” Batman recited, looking at her. “And if he wasn’t trained…”

“Peter is nervous, people are dying, Peter gets more nervous,” Rhaenys said. “A logical cycle. And if he’s more passive or just capable of… buffering or something, then it would be easier. Besides, there are one or two other factors I want to consider.” Like Sirius’ worrying bits of temper- yes, temper was a thing, even to shocking degrees. But it normally didn’t run to “Hey, let’s plot a simple, ironic murder!” “And before you worry, I’m insisting on Sirius getting therapy. Though we’ll need someone who knows about…” Her hand gesture got across a surprising amount of sarcasm.

“Catching Pettigrew would be a good plan,” Clark said mildly. She looked at him. He was being very… troll-like. Practically at Arianne levels.

“It would, though it is hardly a matter for…” Rhaenys sighed. “Jason knows something, doesn’t he? I’m going to kill the rhyming bastard, then I’m going to kill the streaky haired twit who calls himself my friend.”

“Pax?” Jason was there with Sirius, holding a smoothie as a peace offering. “If I had been able, I would have cleared the matter up, but evidently the rhyming bastard, as you so aptly called him, decided that it wasn’t what he wanted to happen.” He looked aggrieved, which was a word she saved for the more scholarly academics and fifteen-hundred year old sorcerers. “I’ve been able to work out a few new leads and retrace what I did find, however, and I took the precaution of sending copies to B…Batman.”

“The Weasley boy has him for a pet,” Sirius said. “The problem is that we need to actually catch him.”

“I can do that,” Rhaenys said, flattening her hand in a familiar gesture. Sirius shook his head slightly. “Though getting in Hogwarts might be an issue…”

Sirius grinned at her. “Oh, Chesh. You really think that little of me?”

~

Shazi wasn’t sure she liked the Wizarding World, and she was glad that Mum was thinking about moving, especially if she thought Shazi was in danger.

(Mum had Shazi’s dad- and that was still weird, she’d half thought Uncle Jason was her dad, or maybe that odd vampire Mum knew, but he was alive and it wasn’t his choice to leave her- he made her a Portkey to Uncle Oberyn, who could get her safe. Which was probably the best option out of all possible ones.)

Shazi had stolen one of Loreza’s sweatshirts to go to Hogwarts, one that originally belonged to Little Elia from the stables she worked at, and she had her new elm wand tucked in her closable pouch. She had a set of brass knuckles from Robin in her sleeve, and she kept her stance ready to fight.

Mum was upset, her hair too mad to do anything but pull in a ponytail, hands kept in her pockets as often as possible. “I love you,” she’d whispered into her hair, but she was still calmer than Shazi expected. (Dad did that, Shazi knew- Robin had told her when he gave her the knuckles, that Dad grounded out Mum’s powers and let her control them better than the music.)

She looked nervously through the cars, not really wanting to sit with a group of people like all the chattering people. She’d gotten on about… halfway through, and turned down, figuring most of the older students would head up front where the snack trolley was freshest.

The boy from the Prophet photo and the one who looked like one of the few photos hidden in Mum’s attic were in a cart with an adult and a girl with bushy hair, and Shazi reflected that she could be a spy. She could be Useful.

“Can I sit in here?” she asked, looking hopeful. “Some of the cars seemed really loud, or crowded, or both, and I won’t take up much space…”

“Of course,” came the boy who had to be Harry, coming to help her with her trunk. “Ron, come on. First year?”

“Yeah,” Shazi grinned. “I didn’t know until a few weeks ago, so this is all really… bright. Diagon Alley was a riot- I think Mum said it was like an Edwardian street done up in Pride colors.”

The girl let out a snort.

“You’re muggleborn, then?” the Weasley boy asked.

“Yup,” Shazi said, popping it like Roy did. “Probably. My dad left before I was born, so maybe he was? But Mum’s a researcher at Queen’s College at Oxford- she does medieval history, mostly, and she’s a bit dubious about the classload here. How are we expected to balance a bankbook or know to leave a tip?”

“You get taught that at home,” the Weasley boy said, slowly. Harry sighed. She had a feeling that wasn’t something he knew before.

“What’s your name?” the girl said. “Mine’s Hermione Granger, that is Ron Weasley, and Harry Potter is the one who helped you with your trunk.”

“Shazi Targaryen,” she said firmly. “Granddad is the only one mad enough to call me Shahrazad.”

Hermione looked ready to question the nickname- she was two, she couldn’t say Shahrazad, it came out and Little Elia and Cranky-Crazy Uncle Oberyn thought it adorable, so it stuck.

Harry distracted them by asking Ron about his vacation, and Shazi distracted herself by imagining batty Dr. Hightower’s reaction to wizarding cursebreakers who worked for banks instead of museums.

Roof, meet Hightower.

She looked curiously at the adult, who was wearing secondhand clothes only slightly more better than some of the students Mum had, and she was suspecting that was more practice than finances. The letters Professor RJ Lupin were in peeling letters on his trunk, and she hoped she didn’t gulp. Robins probably didn’t gulp. Auntie Sansa probably didn’t gulp.

But, hey, one of Dad’s other best friends, one who thought he killed a whole bunch of people? Right there. On the train.

Uncle Jason missed a lot.

If she needed to give more of an example, she would bring up the freaking Dementors, and the memories coming up in her head, after two of the older trio’s friends came into the carriage.

Auntie Sansa, all tall and chic and impossibly pretty, looking sad and nervous as she picked a seven year old Shazi up from school. “Your mum got hurt in London earlier today,” she told her, and that was all the details until Shazi got home, sending her into a spiral of imagining what could hurt Mum, who was a meta and made her skin supertough if she needed to…

Mum and Grandad having one of their fights where nobody shouted, just said words carefully and watched as the person flinched. Grandad never liked it that Mum didn’t tell anyone who Shazi’s dad was, that she didn’t live in Dragonstone, that she wasn’t focusing entirely on her powers…

And Mum said “I can promise you Shazi’s father wasn’t married to an ill mother of two,” and Grandad didn’t visit for six months…

Being asked why she didn’t have a dad, and asking her mother and seeing the shifts that spoke of sadness, and not being able to answer the teasing…

The memories went away, and Hermione was looking at her nervously. “Are you alright?”

“What were those?” Shazi asked, shaking in Elia/Loreza’s sweatshirt. She knew already, and she wanted to go home and give Dad a hug. How did he deal with them for twelve years?

“The dementors of Azkaban,” Professor Lupin confirmed, and Shazi focused on Harry.

“You look like I feel,” she said.

“He fainted,” Hermione said, looking mulish. Harry looked embarrassed.

“And I must have had a seizure,” Shazi said, because she never could keep her mouth closed. The professor had a tiny smile as he handed out chocolate. “It brought up bad memories, so I guess your brain went to protect you.”

“By fainting,” the redheaded girl said suspiciously. She looked very shaky herself, and Shazi wished she had Mum’s ability to read people. Or maybe telepathy.

“Brains are stupid,” Shazi babbled. “See fevers. On the one hand, they try to kill infections. On the other, they can burn so hot they kill you. The body is a wonderfully made disaster that drives invention, according to one of my Mum’s friends.” Uncle Tyrion had possibly been kidding. Probably not. Lannister Industries was into medical stuff.

They looked thoughtful at that, and they bickered over where they thought she’d be sorted.

~

The night Shazi went to Hogwarts, Sirius had taken it upon himself to feed Cheshire. There was tomato soup, grilled cheese, and a bottle of wine, all of which should be within his capabilities.

Over the past weeks, they had a routine- the Watchtower, Rhaenys to tutoring or research, and one long afternoon while Rhaenys had explained that Shazi was going to Hogwarts to her family.

Rhaenys had her hair silver and limp as she slumped onto the couch, looking small and tired. Shazi was the one who explained.

“Grandad was cool with it- he’s a seer, and apparently knows the Headmaster from something or another, which, Grandad, I love him, but he is awful at the figuring out bits,” she said. “Grandmere was worried, but Mum was clear that she’ll pull me if she’s unhappy.”

Sirius would have been unhappy with that- his Hogwarts memories were still heavily slanted to the dim and foggy that meant happiness, even with J’onn and Rhaenys helping him- but her logic was sound. Rhaenys didn’t have a good impression of the wizarding world, and she hadn’t been approving of the courses offered.

Sirius might, Before, have pointed out his impressions of her family weren’t all that good. They treated her as something fragile and broken, after all, and he wondered how much of her stress fractures were from the perceptions her family had forced on her.

“Uncle Doran doesn’t offer opinions, but he didn’t think I could fight and win,” Rhaenys added. Sirius wanted to go to her, but right now he probably would make her worse. “Uncle Oberyn is distrusting, and Obara thinks I shouldn’t have done it.”

“Aunt Arianne thinks it might be an adventure,” Shazi pointed out. “Auntie Elia was interested by the broom thing. Aunt Dany thought that it sounded interesting, and that if Mum was that uncomfortable, Granddad was going to pay for magic tutors.”

“To annoy Uncle Doran, Aunt Ellaria, and Dad, respectively,” Rhaenys muttered. “And Egg is in… Hong Kong right now, at least, though I’m expecting a phone call from him and Sansa. Jon was nice enough to offer me help if needed.”

To run, he expected. Which would hurt, but Rhaenys would do it if she needed to.

So now that Shazi was probably heading across the lake, he pulled the only slightly burnt sandwiches off the pan and put them on a plate.

Rhaenys stumbled in. “They said you came in early,” she said, slightly disapproving. She’d gone to her Other Job, as they were all apparently calling it, after Shazi got on the Express. Possibly so she could hit something.

“I finished the therapy appointment, and the training,” Sirius said. “I like Sansa.”

“Sansa is a vain, girly as hell gift from the gods and I don’t know why she gives my brother the time of day, much less why she married him,” Rhaenys shook her head. “What did she say?”

“That she literally just graduated, please don’t expect miracles, a few other things,” he waved his hands. Part of it was to expect some severe mood swings, and watch if Rhaenys’ passive abilities and protective streak influenced them.

She blunted them- Sansa had described it as cuts from dirty knives, leaving an infection. The healing process would be messy, but an empath could work on his mind and soul the way a healer would on his body.

It did take a toll, though- she needed to “ground” the bad energy, keep it from hurting her.

So Sirius was being helpful, and trying to avoid too much skin-to-skin contact to amplify her powers.

“I made dinner,” he said, holding up a bowl of soup. She grinned.

“Eat in the living room? I have some photocopies to look through…” she grabbed the platter and bottle of wine, frowning.

“Magic, love,” he said, holding up the wand someone had managed to get for him and levitating the soup and glasses.

“You clean the mess,” she said, leading the way to the living room. He watched her walk- Rhaenys always moved like she had a tune in her head. When they first met it had been dreamy pieces, almost like ballet. Then it had picked up as they fell in love, Billy Joel or the Stones. Now it wasn’t either, really. A folk song, maybe, or jazz number.

She was laughing when she told him about her day. Her descriptions hadn’t changed, at least- he remembered her describing Lily’s temper and sense of fair play and never once mentioning the color of her hair when describing her to Jason. She’d been doing what was supposed to be a normal consulting job when, of course, something tried to eat her.

Sirius took a long gulp of the wine, trying not to imagine the scrunched up look of annoyance on her face. “Any casualties?”

“No, Robin handled evacuations like a pro, and they had an obvious weak spot,” she said. “Still, it was nice to smash something today.”

“Sansa said the others tried to find something that had good odds of you getting to punch something, Professor,” he teased. There were a few parents or older siblings in the group- he knew the behavior well enough, and Sansa had mentioned that Rhaenys worked a bit with the younger crowd, to the point where the first Robin had stuck the “Professor” nickname on her.

“Just choose Gotham,” she said, dryly. “Anywhere in Gotham. Did Sansa get back to us about Dad?”

“He’ll be in town next week,” Sirius said, shrugging. “He said he’ll drop by the house.” He felt a little foggy, and tried to count the wine glasses he’d had versus the soup.

Not that many, he decided. One and a half. He was just out of practice.

“Oh,” Rhaenys said, drawing her knees up. Sirius moved over a bit, so he could sling an arm over her and let her tuck her head against his chest, trying to remember why this was a bad plan. Rhaenys’ breathing against his neck was warm and slightly off pattern, and he pulled her closer and wished things were different, the guilt creeping back up like poison.

“You can’t change the past, Sirius, all you can do is try and use what you have to rebuild the future,” Rhaenys said, looking up at him. “You didn’t put the words in Peter’s mouth, you didn’t put that puppet spell on him. Am I still furious that you left me without a note, a goodbye? Yes. But I had twelve years to grieve you, and James, and Lily. I had Shazi, and my work, and I rebuilt. A little sadder, a little harder, probably a little lesser for my losses,” she sighed. “Of course, I fully admit my position is… odd.”

“Not commenting,” he said to the woman sitting between his legs. “But I still wish I hadn’t trusted Peter, and that I could have been there. For you, for Harry, for Shazi…” He sighed.

“Well, you’ll just have to be there for us now,” she said, looking wistful and with a bit of hope.

“Doing my best,” he said, and he realized there were no bruises down her bare arms, no white in her hair.

She sighed. “I’ve grown up, Padfoot,” she said simply.

“Sorry, the last time I remember you having contact with a dementor…” he drifted off. “It left an impression. I should have checked?”

She nodded, looking bemused. “Was that why you’ve been so careful?”

He decided that answering that was just going to get him in trouble, and her face was right there, and apparently the past twelve years had shot his tolerance straight to hell, because he hazily remembered that she’d sigh and tangle a hand in the hair along the back of his neck if he bit down on her lip and traced down to just under her ear, a hand going up her top. Rhaenys was home and safety, the girl in the garden he’d half-stolen so many years ago (she’d mostly stolen herself, with a wicked grin and steady words), and he just wanted to know she was real.

The next morning, he woke up to the sound of someone coming in the door, tilting his head up from the couch, Rhaenys pillowed and snoring slightly on top of him.

…The bastard lied, Sirius thought muzzily, shaking Rhaenys awake. “Mr. Targaryen, I presume?”

He didn’t look much like Rhaenys, at first, except his coloring was similar to her stressed state, and something in his lines. The grumpy look was familiar, too.

“I don’t know your name,” the man said, very cold and clipped.

“I have a few things to tell you,” Rhaenys said, sitting up and brushing out her clothing. “You might want to sit down, Da. …And listen, for once?”

Her hair is snarled and she still looks a little sleepy, but she looks confident, less like the weary woman who came home from explaining Hogwarts or the self-conscious, dreaming girl watching him from behind a garden gate, jumping at her parents’ voices.

They explain, and Rhaegar Targaryen watched them both, not showing a hint of what he was feeling. It was weird- he’d been good at reading people, and the past weeks had proven it hadn’t gone away.

Of course, Rhaegar Targaryen was a seer who had helped raised an empath, a firestarter, and a skinchanger. That would teach anyone to bottle their emotions.

“You never should have gotten involved,” were the first words out of his mouth, and Rhaenys groaned.

“Da, you didn’t see him. I could hardly blame him when he didn’t intend on leaving, now could I?” she said, crossing her arms. “And I got a second opinion, and am trying to be careful, which, thank you for just dropping by earlier than expected.”

“In the first place,” the man clarified. “Wanded wizards have a bad reputation, and the Blacks worse than most. And it lead to trouble and heartbreak.”

“I am nothing like my family,” Sirius snarled.

“They will still go after Rhaenys and your child when they learn of this,” Targaryen pointed out, as if he were a very dim child.

“I’m capable of looking after myself, thanks,” Rhaenys said, something edgy in her tone. “And I’d remind you that a lot of good came from it, too. I had Shazi, who I thought you adored, and I got experience standing on my own two feet…”

“And afterwards?” he said, delicately.

“Hormones,” Rhaenys said, shooting a quick look at Sirius. “And two of my friends dying, and the precautions being taken backfiring. And if you try and pass judgement on me, I will laugh at you and ask how Mum would feel about you passing judgment on relationship choices.”

“Rhaenys,” he said.

“Lyanna,” she snarled, “was barely legal, your cousin’s girlfriend, and Mum was pregnant with a heart condition.”

He seemed to shrink at that. “You still haven’t forgiven me?”

“Considering the nearly-died while you were in holiday bit…” Rhaenys’ smile was sharp. “You don’t insult Sirius in front of me, I won’t bring up how long it took you to remember your family. Not to mention a million other things over the years.”

“What do you need,” he said, oddly stiff in his black jacket in this cheery blue-painted room covered with books and muggle photos, the remnants of dinner on the low table.

  
She told him.

~

The plan was remarkably simple. Her father wrote to Dumbledore, stating that he’d like to come to Hogwarts to discuss some prophecy or another, and Rhaenys and Jason would accompany him, projecting a notice-me-not. Their powers worked together well, after all- she’d gotten used to working with him, and her empath-based magic would keep even the Dementors from looking too closely.

It was, after all, merely another mask, just another one she crafted to fool the world around her.

On the appointed day, she woke up curled around Sirius, who had lost the waxy pallor and deathlike visage that had drained her anger, the ever-present shadows relaxed in sleep. No nightmares, for once, though he’d been kicking like the cliched dog.

It was hard, sometimes, for her to tell faces apart- a hilarious failing for a shapeshifter, she knew, but she could tell you about the wonderful buoyancy of Sirius’ belief in a person, the deep and acid anger that clogged his throat and the way he needed to be around other people like air.

But she could describe Sirius’ face, if asked, though her words might be off-kilter. Elegant, full of life, sharp-fox-eyed.

She had to pull herself out of bed though, and get dressed, opting for warmth and comfort over fashion.

“Chesh?” he said sleepily.

“I’m off to play Rat Catcher,” she said, with forced cheer. “J’onn and Aegon are going to be here.”

“Ah, the babysitters,” he said bitterly.

“You are not,” she said, fixing him with a sharp look, “going to sulk. Sirius, it’s no good to ruin the plan on the most delicate stage. We need you safe, and alive, and… well, not eaten by dementors.”

Shazi’s letter, written in Maman’s old cipher, had explained about the train incident. She had nearly pulled her daughter for that alone, but she had to have faith in the plan.

This would all be decided tonight.

~

Shazi had decided to sit next to Harry today, because he had gotten some stupid comments about the Dementors and he didn’t have a Canary to teach him to throw a proper punch. He’d waved at her.

“Hullo,” he said. “How are classes?”

“Thank you for warning me about Snape,” she said. “He’s horrible, and I think that some of the questions he asks are from the second year books. I’m going over all his material twice as hard- he doesn’t seem to like me.” She did look a bit like Dad, now that she thought about it- Mum’s coloring covered it, but they had the same expressions, and Mum was always more serene than Uncle Jason finally admitted Dad used to be. Maybe that explained some of it?

Though Mum was going to have a dragon-sized fit when she learned a Death Eater was allowed to teach when Uncle Jason wasn’t. And Professor Lupin, possibly- she really didn’t think anyone knew he was a werewolf. (She shouldn’t, but Dad had gotten a bit carried away, and she had heard him explaining why he and the Professor hadn’t trusted each other to Mum anyway.)

“Really, Albus, I must protest your hospitality,” came an alarmingly familiar voice. She squeaked and spun around. Granddad was there, looking very Targaryen and mildly annoyed, Uncle Jason winked at her, and Mum…

“Mum!” she called, waving her over, because Mum looked awful. She was leaning a bit on Uncle Jason, looking like she hadn’t slept in a week, her hair curled up in half and her eyes mismatched.

“Shazi?” she said, sounding a bit faint. “I would like to have a strong word with whoever left those ringwraith knockoffs outside a school. I wonder if it would be possible to get Poison Ivy as my second…”

There was a scattered giggling, probably mostly from the Muggleborns. Shazi giggled, but that was because Robin had told her about the incident with Mum, Ivy, and the Joker, wherein Ivy had decided that the Joker was more irritating.

She sat down, and Shazi introduced her to her friends, all asking polite questions that Mum warmed to after a cup of tea and some breakfast.

Mum, after all, was a teacher at heart.

“You know something about metahumans?” Hermione asked, and Shazi watched as Granddad and Uncle Jason left.  “The wizarding world claims that they don’t exist, but then the reports of people like Wonder Woman…”

Mum looked untroubled. “Oh, yes. I’m one myself, you know.” She let her voice carry a bit, and Shazi grinned.

Oooh boy, someone was in trouble.

“You are?” Harry asked.

“Empath,” she smiled, teeth a shade too like a vampire’s fangs. “Ron, was it? Can I see that peculiar rat-shaped being in your pocket? Professor McGonagall, would you mind soothing a mother’s frayed nerves?”

Oh, Mum was playing the crowd, hands flat on the table to hide the gesture she made when she coated an area in an emotion.

Professor McGonagall came as a sleepy, slightly puzzled Scabbers came out, just far enough down the table she could barely make out his beady little eyes. Shazi stared at the rat with a new fury, wondering if this was how Batman felt all the time.

She thought it caught her expression when he broke out of Mum’s trance enough to start struggling.

“Is there a way to forcibly reverse a transformation of some kind?” Mum asked. Harry was looking at her and Shazi and Shazi wanted to explain, but she was remembering how completely zombie-like Dad looked when he found them, and she spent eleven years with Mum grieving for this man.

Professor McGonagall seemed to do it more because she wanted to see what was going on than anything else. Most everyone else was just… watching, and if it wasn’t Mum, kindly Dr. Targaryen who hosted students for dinner and taught baby superheros who called her Professor and was Dreamfire, she’d be afraid.

Mum looked a bit tired, though.

The rat took on a man’s shape, and Ron dropped him with a look of horror. “Told you, Mum,” Shazi said.

Then, in the pandemonium, Pettigrew tried to escape, and Shazi launched at him, flickering a hole in the air and tackling him without hitting the floor, a cloud of multicolored dust around her.

“Whoops,” she muttered, noticing the blood clotting it together. She thought she broke his nose. Hah, she’d need to tell Canary that she’d…

She looked at the hole in the air, then at the stares around her.

“Not bad for my first time?” she tried.

Harry started snickering, possibly because he felt bad.

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Ron asked.

“It starts with… ah, well, I suppose for me it starts with a girl in a garden meeting an injured Hogwarts student, seventeen years ago. My powers had, my family believed, left me fragile, and I was mostly kept to the house,” Mum explained, looking curiously at her audience. “A boy popped in, like magic. So I helped him, and we became friends. It was our secret, at first, but he told a boy as close to him as a brother, and his wife. For a time, it was happy, if complicated. But… they vanished, not quite twelve years ago, and I was never able to find out what happened to them, or the couple’s son.” Her eyes came to rest on Harry, and Shazi heard McGonagall gasp.

“Sirius Black…”

“Mmm,” Mum said, looking at her. “It’s actually impossible to lie to me. Drives my brothers up the wall, not to mention Shazi. So when he told me he never did anything, and I had another source check it, and both of us worked it out…”

“Pettigrew being alive in the Great Hall is also very hard to argue against,” McGonagall added, looking pointedly at the High Table. Snape wasn’t here, Shazi grinned, but Professor Lupin was staring at them like he’d been hit by Superman.

Mum held her head up, watching them all carefully. “Now, what should we be doing next?”

~

“…Why is Shazi here?” Sirius asked looking bemused. Aegon had dropped him off in the Tower so he could run the errand Sirius had begged him for, and there was a weight in his pocket.

“Because I can teleport!” Shazi said, demonstrating. “Also apparently it makes hallucinating dust, which is awesome. The Weasley twins offered to pay me for a sample, but then Mum was there, and Uncle, and that didn’t work..”

Batman was very, very silent at that. “Doctor, I’m sorry.”

Rhaenys snickered, especially when Flash tripped.

“You two set that up,” he complained.

“Well, yes,” she said. “I hoped someone realized that by now,” she added, thoughtfully.

“I did,” Sirius said. Diana laughed a little as she walked over.

“I figured that one out a long time ago,” she said, standing next to Sirius. “Your sense of humor is distinct,” she pointed out to Bruce.

“Nearly nonexistent,” Flash muttered.

“So everything worked?” she asked.

“After quite a few arguments, and Jason nearly losing his temper, yes,” Rhaenys said, wiggling her eyebrows. Bruce clearly winced behind the cowl. “I seemed to terrify them, strangely.”

“You silenced the Great Hall with a wave of your hand,” Shazi said, making everyone stare.

“I stole the ambient magic and used it to boost my powers,” she wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like it, but we needed it public, and we’re going to need it, I think. Da let a few things slip, and I think we haven’t heard the last of the wizards.”

“And Harry?” Sirius asked.

“He’s nice,” Shazi said. “A bit shy, but nice, clever. You should write to him. He’d probably understand. I did, so I told him to expect a letter before we left.”

“I’ll send the letter as soon as I can,” he said. “I was cleared, though?”

Rhaenys nodded, looking tired. “It worked.”

“They wanted to give us to something called an Unspeakable, though,” Shazi added.

Sirius’ mind went very cold at that, the terrifying thought of Rhaenys and their daughter being treated like an experiment deep under the bowels of the Ministry. “Oh, they would remember why they were so quick to be terrified of me if they tried that,” Sirius said, flatly. “I don’t think any of you would fancy my methods, but I really wouldn’t care.”

The faint feeling of a rope was off of his wrist, and Rhaenys sighed, gaze on Diana’s lasso.

“Really, Diana?” she muttered. “I told you he did that. Sirius, we’ll deal. I can see if I can work at another university if I need to. I’m not putting Shazi under direct risk like that.”

She waited until later to corner Bruce, asking her question. “So?”

“The working theory is that you’re right- he is somewhere between a metahuman and magical, and his magic shaped it somehow,” Bruce said. “Can she really teleport?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m going to be using my powers to be hiding even more greys when she tries to use them for her little gymnastics routines,” Rhaenys sighed. “I was almost hoping she would have a normal life. And as to the magical shaping- it could have been accidental magic, the baby magic or stress induced magic young children did. Or it could have been the animagus transformation- he was awfully young, and god knows he has enough dog like traits as it is, and the temper could be a hellhound thing? Shazi argues for accidental magic, though- she was trying to catch Pettigrew. I suppose we will find out when we have more data.”

He looked at her. “You think this is going to be be a growing problem?”

“Probably,” Rhaenys said, tapping her fingers. “Ah, well. We’ll just have to adjust, as always.”

~

Once upon a time, there was a boy who couldn’t legally apparate, and a girl sulking in a garden. She stared at this stranger in her roses, bruised and bloodless, and rushed up, gloved hands helping him to the bench, ignoring the way her hair straightened and her face subtly changed shape.

He snuck into the garden for most of the summer, and the next Christmas he took her out of the walls, away from her home, and they went sledding, laughing and bright.

When he left school and she managed to break away from the garden, they realized that the dance they did was as much romantic and friendly, and they introduced each other to their brothers.

Then he was locked away, and she grieved, and became something else, dusty and clever and hunting.

When he broke free, he found her, because he believed she was sanctuary. And she loved him still, and he found their daughter.

So they caught the man who had betrayed him and their dead friends, and while there were doubters, he was allowed to walk free, and take in his godson. (Who now had a very enthusiastic godsister.)

But happily ever after is not something that the living can claim, but they did have each other, and for that strange family, it was enough.


End file.
